{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://pressley.house.gov/2026/09/17/news-with-unemployment-rising-under-trump-pressley-renews-call-for-federal-job-guarantee/", "NEWS: With Unemployment Rising Under Trump, Pressley Renews Call for Federal Job Guarantee", "2026-09-17", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "House", "MA", "Ayanna Pressley", "P000617", "pressley.house.gov", "pressley", "https://pressley.house.gov/news/", "scraper", "Historic Resolution Follows in Footsteps of Civil Rights Leaders Coretta Scott King, Economist Sadie Alexander, and Others\n\nJob Guarantee Would Provide Critical Safety Net, Good-Paying Union Jobs, and Close Income Gap\n\nResolution Text (PDF) | Resolution Summary (PDF)\n\nWASHINGTON \u2013 Today, with unemployment surging under Donald Trump, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, reintroduced her historic resolution calling for a federal job guarantee. The resolution, which builds on the legacy and work of Black women in the civil rights movement, would help the United States achieve the promise of full employment, establish a more resilient and inclusive economy, and begin to close racial and gender income gaps.\n\nCongresswoman Pressley has consistently called for the Federal Reserve to enforce its dual mandate for maximum employment and address the crisis of Black unemployment, particularly Black women\u2019s unemployment.\n\n\u201cWith Black folks being pushed out of the workforce and unemployment rates at their highest since the COVID-19 pandemic, we need a Federal Job Guarantee now more than ever,\u201d said Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. \u201cA federal job guarantee is a central and unfulfilled demand of the civil rights movement and I\u2019m proud to stand on the shoulders of civil rights icons like Coretta Scott King and Sadie Alexander to keep pushing for this historic resolution, which would support working families of every background, help America reach full employment, and help achieve long-term economic security for all.\u201d\n\nA federal job guarantee would provide every person with an enforceable legal right to a quality job. Extending beyond a project-based approach, the resolution calls for the creation of federal jobs that meet long-neglected community, physical and human infrastructure needs, such as delivering quality care for children and seniors, building and sustaining 21st century transit systems, strengthening neighborhoods, and protecting the environment. Funded by the federal government and implemented locally in partnership with communities, the program would provide public jobs for all adults seeking employment.\n\nBy ensuring everyone has access to a good job with dignified wages, safe working conditions, health care and other benefits\u2014including full worker rights and union protections\u2014a federal job guarantee would set a new standard for quality jobs, pressuring low-wage employers to increase wages and benefits. It would create a pathway to stable employment and begin to close the gaping income and wealth gap for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous workers who continue to face discrimination and are often the \u201cfirst ones fired, last ones hired\u201d during economic crises. It would also ensure economic inclusion for those experiencing discrimination in the labor market, including people with disabilities, transgender people, caregivers, and people with criminal records or involvement with the criminal legal system. A permanent job guarantee would operate as an automatic stabilizer, maintaining consumer spending and protecting us from prolonged recessions and jobless recoveries \u2014 making the economy more resilient as well as more inclusive.\n\n\u201cWe applaud Congresswoman Pressley for her steadfast commitment to justice and advancing policies that invest in people. This federal job guarantee resolution recognizes and promotes the infrastructure to put our most productive resources to work for a greener, more just and inclusive economy that works for us all,\u201d said Dr. Darrick Hamilton, Founding Director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School.\n\n\u201cWorkers in the U.S. are experiencing unprecedented times: an affordability crisis compounded by record long-term unemployment, disproportionate job losses for Black women, and increasing structural barriers especially impacting younger, older, and immigrant workers. Huge swaths of the American workforce are also not being paid a living wage, especially those in jobs that have been historically undervalued such as care and domestic work,\u201d said Elyse Shaw, Director of Education, Labor and Worker Justice at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). \u201cWe applaud Congresswoman Pressley for introducing the Federal Jobs Guarantee resolution, which calls for proactive policies that address the systemic and discriminatory barriers limiting many workers\u2019 access to quality jobs and careers as well as robust worker protections for all.\u201d\n\nA copy of the resolution can be found here and a summary is here.\n\nRep. Pressley first introduced the historic resolution in February 2021. Following introduction. Pressley questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in a House Financial Services Committee hearing about the need for a federal job guarantee to help the United States achieve full employment. In September 2021, she published an op-ed in The Nation outlining the civil rights history of the Federal Job Guarantee and discussed the urgent need to establish one.\n\nRep. Pressley has repeatedly sounded the alarm on the rising number of Black women forced out of the workforce in the United States, called on the Federal Reserve to take action, and convened impacted women and economists to renew those calls. The Federal Reserve responded to the Congresswoman\u2019s letter in October, and Rep. Pressley pushed for further action demanding a briefing for members of the Congressional Black Caucus on how the Fed is responding to this crisis.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-18T09:27:43Z", "2026-09-18T09:29:09Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://pressley.house.gov/2026/09/17/news-with-unemployment-rising-under-trump-pressley-renews-call-for-federal-job-guarantee/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.850131269544363, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}